


Witch's Lament

by lookninjas



Series: The Man Behind the Curtain (Ben!verse) [5]
Category: Glee
Genre: Descriptions of mental illness, Other, descriptions of post-partum depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 02:23:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6101637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookninjas/pseuds/lookninjas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knows that she's not a very good person.  She is jealous and spiteful and resentful even of her own son, and she has no idea how to be a mother.  But she's trying.  She <em>is</em> trying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Witch's Lament

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize for the lack of cuddling and the vicious, vicious amount of angst. Miranda might not be the least sympathetic character I've written, but I think she's probably pretty close. (And yet, somehow, I still feel sorry for her.)
> 
> Title stolen from Stephen Sondheim

He still thinks, sometimes, that she settled for him.

He doesn't have to say it; she knows. She knows it because of the way he touches her hair first thing in the morning, his hand resting against the tangle of curls for just a moment before he slips silently out of bed, still believing she's asleep. She knows it because of the way he looks at her across the dinner table, his lips parting just a little bit in something almost like a silent gasp. She knows it because sometimes his hand finds hers -- at a dinner party, perhaps, with the other faculty members and their spouses -- and he won't let go, like he's afraid she'll vanish if his grip loosens just a little bit. Like she's just biding her time; like she'll leave as soon as something better comes along.

She's not entirely sure how much of that is her fault. She knows that none of it is his. Ben is the best person she's ever met, the only one who could ever stick by her after all that she's done. If she's still unhappy, that's nothing to do with him. It's her; it's the way she is, and it doesn't seem to be changing any time soon. She just doesn't know how to be happy.

But that's all right. She doesn't need happiness. She needs patience, kindness, forgiveness. She needs someone to calm her when she's terrified, to hold her when she's sobbing, to stand by her when no one else will.

She needs _Ben_.

 

*

 

Everything Blaine has learned about love, he's learned from his father.

It's strange, seeing him with a boyfriend for the first time. Not in a bad way, not really. It's just... strange. To take their pictures; Blaine in his tuxedo and Kurt in his kilt and formal jacket. To see Blaine straighten Kurt's lapels with gentle, reverent hands. To see Blaine's lips part as he glances over at Kurt, like the boy is so beautiful that it just stops his heart. To see the way his hand finds Kurt's, clinging tightly. Like he can't believe that Kurt's really his; like he can't imagine how he got so lucky.

He's so like his father in these moments.

The only real difference is Kurt.

Because when Blaine takes Kurt's hand, Kurt answers with a strong grip of his own; when Blaine looks at Kurt, Kurt gazes back at him with soft, amazed eyes; when Blaine's fingers graze the fabric of Kurt's formal jacket, Kurt's whole body seems to tremble with longing. Blaine makes Kurt _happy_ , and Miranda can only wonder what that must feel like.

She tries not to begrudge them too much. They are young and full of dreams and the world will be different for them than it is for her. It's only right that they should have it all.

And, after all, she has what she needs.

Most of the time, anyway.

 

*

 

It's a little better, now that Blaine is older.

The first year was a nightmare; every time she looked at Blaine, she could feel the weight settling on her chest, suffocating her. Panic wasn't a stranger to her, but it had never been so bad, and this time Ben couldn't help her through it. Because he had to be there for Blaine. Because no matter how impossibly much she needed him to stroke her hair and hold her hands and calm her down, Blaine always needed him more. He needed to be fed. He needed his diaper changed. He needed to be cradled and rocked to sleep; he needed quiet; he needed his father; he just needed so much. And she hated it.

She hated _Blaine_.

Because Blaine was small and helpless and fragile and beautiful and his father loved him to the exclusion of all other things, and sometimes she couldn't be in the same room with him without wanting to do something, anything, just to get rid of him somehow, even if she had to --

Never mind.

But she was desperate, then. She was overwhelmed and abandoned and it was all she could do to keep from screaming most days.

It's better now.

 

*

 

It's not the first time she's woken up in the middle of the night to find herself alone.

It's been a while, though.

The last time was after the Sadie Hawkins Dance (the words capitalized even in _her_ head), after the hospital, after she fell asleep in the car and Ben had to help her up the stairs before heading back down for Blaine. She woke up alone sometime before the sun rose and, feeling strangely panicked, stumbled out of bed and down the hall to Blaine's room, tripping over her own feet in her haste. Ben was there, of course; slumped in a chair next to the bed, his glasses still on, his brow furrowed even in sleep. And Blaine, tossing restlessly, his face battered and bruised and swollen -- the blackened eyes, the split lip -- and Miranda felt... _something_ , some tugging that pulled her all the way into the room, to sit on the edge of the bed.

There was still dirt in Blaine's curls, the dark curls that he'd inherited from her, and she'd carded her fingers through his hair carefully, trying to get the worst of it out without jostling his aching head too much. And he'd stopped muttering and shifting, had fallen still under her hands; so still, in fact, that she'd had to press one hand to his chest, over his heart, just to make sure he hadn't died. And she felt him breathing under her hand, the steady rise and fall of his chest, and for a few, precious moments she thought maybe they were right when they'd told her she could make it work. That she could learn to be his mother if she just tried hard enough.

It didn't stick, in the end, but she still remembers that choking feeling of gratitude, the way it made tears spring to her eyes, her stomach lurching uncomfortably. How it made her glad and guilty all at the same time.

After all, what kind of mother is grateful for her own son's beating?

But she was grateful then, and she's hopeful now as she pads down the hallway to Blaine's room, pushes the door open as quietly as she can. It's something of a shock to find the bed empty, the desk chair where it's supposed to be, the room dark and still and silent.

But of course, this is Prom Night, not Sadie Hawkins, and they'd already agreed that Blaine would spend the night at Kurt's rather than risking the roads at night. He wouldn't come home unless something had gone horribly wrong. Clearly, nothing has.

It's horrifying even to think it, but she can't deny that she's a little disappointed.

She stares into the empty room for a moment longer, then turns and closes the door behind her.

 

*

 

Blaine isn't his father's son only, of course. He has his mother's coloring, her dark curls and olive-tinged complexion, although his eyes, more amber than hazel, catch the light in a way hers never will. He smiles often, the way she does; he starts conversations and laughs at jokes and steals the spotlight wherever he goes, making himself the center of attention wherever he is.

Of course, Miranda had to teach herself these things. Blaine is simply being himself.

She resents him a little for that. It's so _easy_ for him.

But then it's not, anymore. Because Blaine is still his father's son, no matter what, and he doesn't understand how to fake it, how to hide himself behind masks, behind his smiles and his laughter and his quick way of talking. He doesn't know how to lie.

So he doesn't.

Miranda knows that she's not a very good person, deep down. She is jealous, petty, resentful even of her own son. So it surprises her, the way she aches for Blaine after he comes out and finds that, although he's still the center of attention, it's no longer for the right reasons. He comes home from school every day with his head hanging, his shoulders slumped, and she finds herself... well, _trying_. She waits for him to come home from school; she makes sure there's some little snack there, something he likes, and if he doesn't have too much homework, they sit on the couch together and watch mindless afternoon television. He likes _America's Next Top Model_ , so she'll flip through channels endlessly looking for re-runs. Because he likes it. Because it makes him laugh, and she's starting to miss his laugh, now that it doesn't come so easily.

They never talk about what's happening to him, not really. And she doesn't fool herself that bonding over reality TV is enough to make them a family. But it's still more than she ever thought she'd be capable of, and she's a little proud of herself for that.

 

*

 

After nineteen years of marriage, she and Ben still don't understand each other completely. She doubts they ever will. He's still trying to make her happy, even though he should have given up by now. She's still testing his patience, because it's the only thing she knows how to do. They can't read each other's minds; sometimes they barely even speak the same language. But Miranda knows Ben well enough to know where he goes when Blaine isn't there and Ben is terrified for him and he needs someplace to hide, someplace to worry himself to sleep.

So she pads down the stairs, through the living room and into his study, moving as quietly as she can so as not to disturb him. He's there, of course, slumped on the old couch with his cell phone held loosely in his hands. It can't be comfortable, and Miranda wonders if she should wake him, lead him up to bed. There's nothing he can do for Blaine tonight anyway, not really. He'd probably go with her. He'd probably even be grateful to her for caring so much about him.

Instead, she leaves him and goes to make herself a cup of tea. She thinks about the half-read book waiting on her bedside table, the knitting she tucked into the back of her closet two weeks ago and never pulled out again, the journal her therapist wants her to start writing. Then she curls up on the couch and starts flipping through the channels. _America's Top Model_ must be on somewhere. It always is.

She drifts off early in season thirteen, and wakes up to a house flooded with sunlight and Blaine sitting on the arm of the couch, his attention caught by the television set. He's making faces at the screen -- it must be the "smizing" episode again.

"With your _eyes_ , Blaine," she says, quietly, and he turns to her, still smiling and trying not to, his lips curled up a little too much at the corners. "Not your mouth -- your eyes."

He can't do it, of course. He's smiling easily again, almost too easily. Miranda thinks she might almost be jealous of him, sometimes.

But then the smile falls away, replaced by something tired and too old for his face, and it's almost startling, how much Blaine looks like his father. "Hey," he says, quietly. "You didn't have to wait up for me. I called Dad -- he should have told you that --"

She wonders, sometimes, when Ben and Blaine stopped understanding each other. Perhaps it's part of being a parent: loving your child, protecting them for as long as you can, and then watching helplessly while they fight their way free of you. Perhaps it's how these things always go, and there's nothing Miranda can do to make it easier on them.

Honestly, she's not really sure why she even cares. But it's been Ben and Blaine, father and son, for so long now. She guesses she's just gotten used to it.

Besides, Ben _needs_ Blaine, the same way that Miranda needs Ben. She can sympathize with that, a little.

"Let me show you something," she says, and stands up, taking Blaine's arm and leading him across the room to his father's study. She opens the door as quietly as she can, and is vaguely pleased that Ben doesn't even stir, still slumped on the battered old couch with his head tipped down to his chest. His phone is still in his hands.

Blaine's eyebrows draw together, puzzled. "But I don't -- I _called_ him, so --"

"He used to rock you to sleep on that couch," Miranda says, leaning against Blaine's shoulder. He glances at her with wide, watery eyes. "Not every night, but most nights. When you were a baby. I think that's why he was so upset when I got new furniture for the living room. He didn't want me to throw it out." She nearly did, too, despite her husband's protests, but she's not about to tell Blaine that. She knows when to keep certain things secret. "Of course, he can't exactly rock you to sleep anymore, but you know how it is. Old habits die hard."

Blaine's eyes are fixed on his father, the way they always were when he was small. He always looked to his father in those days, never to Miranda. And Ben gave him everything, all the time and attention and love that he needed, without stopping to think about how much his wife was hurting, how much she still needed. But Blaine is older now, and things have changed, and Miranda can afford to be magnanimous if she chooses to. "Go wake your father," she says, and gives Blaine a gentle push to get him started. "I'll start breakfast."

Then she turns and walks away, because she doesn't want to see the two of them together again, like they were in the old days. She doesn't really want to see the moment when things start to get a little bit easier. It's the right thing to do, of course, and she's not sorry. But it doesn't make her happy.

Then again, she doesn't know how to be happy. She never really has.


End file.
